For the most part, setting up and maintaining a firewall is done automatically, and you don’t have to do very much to keep it going. In fact, you could have a firewall up and running without even knowing about it.

To make sure your firewall is working, though, you’ll want to test it. There are a number of sites that will test your firewall, and they offer different levels of scrutiny. I used Gibson Research Corporation’s ShieldsUP! web app to test over 1,000 ports on my computer, and found that none of them responded to GRC’s probes, indicating that my computer would be very difficult for a hacker to find using standard methods:

In the process of writing this article, I’ve discovered that some of the big names were temporarily out of commission: AuditMyPC and ShieldsUp! are both popular options, but ShieldsUp! was only working intermittently, and the AuditMyPC firewall test is currently down. Both PCFlank and HackerWatch, two other providers of this type of service, resulted in errors.

So you may have to do some looking around before you find a service that’s working, but it’s definitely worth putting in a bit of effort to see if your firewall is safe.

See How Well Your Antivirus Is Working

It’s difficult to test your antivirus solution without running a virtual machine, which is why the European Expert Group for IT-Security (EICAR) developed a number of testfiles that you can download without risk. All antivirus programs have been programmed with the ability to detect these files, but if they go undetected, they won’t cause harm to your computer; they’re not actually malware.

Head over to the EICAR testfile page to learn more about each testfile and download them to see if your antivirus app picks them up. If it does, you’ll get some sort of notification, like this one:

If you want to test your antivirus against an actual piece of malware, you’ll want to fire up a virtual machineWhat Is a Virtual Machine?What Is a Virtual Machine?Virtual machines allow you to run other operating systems within your current operating system, but why does that matter? What are the pros and cons?Read More and download a real malicious file from one of these sites. Make sure you know what you’re doing if you decide to use this testing method, as it could be dangerous!

Most people will be happy to use a simpler, less treacherous method: checking independent antivirus testing scores. A number of websites test antivirus packages and post their results. Two of the biggest ones are AV-Test.org and AV-Comparatives.org, both of which regularly post the results of updated tests.

You may want to check these results from time to time and make sure that the antivirus package you’re using is still getting solid results.

How Secure Is Your Computer?

A wide variety of factors determine how vulnerable you are to hackers, but if you check out the effectiveness of your firewall, the amount of data that you’re giving up through your browser, and how well your antivirus is working, you’ll have a much better idea of how easy it is for someone to get access to your computer. Run the tests above and let us know how you did! And if you have any other good recommendations for testing your vulnerability, share them in the comments below so we can check them out.

Dann is MakeUseOf's Creative editor. After an MA (and most of a PhD) in psycholinguistics, he fully committed to digital and print journalism. With over 10 years of professional writing experience, he's written about everything from cognitive science to mountain biking.